Rebecca Long-Bailey MP on the Labour Leadership: It’s time to press the reset button on Labour

The events within our party over the last six months have broken the hearts of Labour MP’s, party members and supporters, but Saturday represents a fresh start for all of us.

I recently spoke to an award winning-teacher and asked her the secret of her pupils’ outstanding success. She responded “it’s not about trying to mould a child into what you think they should be with a broad brush approach. Forcing a square peg into a round hole, as it were. It’s about recognising a child’s individual quirks and strengths.”

Difference is our strength

The same is true of our Party. Yes, we all have differences of opinion and differences in style but we must realise on Saturday that this is, in fact, positive. It is our unique selling point. It is what makes us the only party that can truly appeal to the whole of Britain.

Difference is what makes us the only party that can truly appeal to the whole of Britain

However, it is only by drawing on those unique characteristics and harnessing them effectively, that we will ensure electoral success. In a nutshell, we need teamwork.

The stakes are too high not to come together.

The alternative is a broken and divided Britain

The Tories’ latest plans for more grammar schools highlights how 6 years of Conservative power has and will continue to leave Britain hopelessly broken and divided.

We’ve challenged that programme, just as we challenged them on tax credits and cuts to disabled people. Now Labour and the academic community are uniting in opposition to grammar schools. Working together, we absolutely can push the Tories back into opposition and replace them in government.

Growing membership makes us a living presence

Labour is uniquely placed to lead the challenge. Our party retains its living link to the struggle for rights and dignity for working people through the trade unions. Our party’s blossoming membership, which has made Labour the biggest political party in Europe – can make us a living presence in every corner of Britain. Our history is one of people uniting – from social movements and trade unions and from different walks of life to change society.

Our foundations are strong, and now we must channel them to meet modern challenges. Rapid, brutal cuts to services have compounded long-term neglect. Half of those in poverty are working. Council leaders across parties are worried they will be unable to provide the legal minimum level of public services after further cuts. Insecurity defines the lives of a young generation saddled with debt, a working-age generation in casual jobs, and an older generation facing working longer while earning less.

This Government has have let down every taxpayer who has been forced to foot the £78bn bill that modern poverty costs

Modern poverty costs us all

In major cities, home-ownership is a pipe dream for the majority, and even a rental deposit too much for many. Young people don’t believe they will ever own their own home as their parents have. The government’s “affordable starter homes” are affordable in 2 per cent of councils for people earning the so-called “national living wage”.

This Government has have let down every taxpayer who has been forced to foot the £78bn bill that modern poverty costs. They have let down every business and community starved of investment, despite low interest rates, and they have let down everyone whose potential is squandered due to a lack of opportunity.

Britain is rife with people who feel let down, and the EU referendum was an example of communities shouting loud and clear “we have been left behind and we have had enough!”

Bringing people together

The challenge is therefore great, but achievable if we bring people together around and beyond the Labour movement.

There is expertise in all wings of the party that we must utilise, and a reservoir of experience and talent in our MPs, party staff, and our members, activists and supporters. It is imperative that the product of that talent is turned towards the Tories and not at each other.

The methods and networks built up by Corbyn can now be put to use for all of Labour

Now that the leadership election is over it will require fair and open debate from everyone to achieve that aim. Criticism within the party is healthy in the right form but it must be constructive, respectful and should be kept to the policy agenda. Personalised attacks must end.

Corbyn’s methods can be used across Labour

Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign has aimed to open up politics and make policy that is more connected to people. That’s why his headline initiatives – a national investment bank, a million new homes, and a national education service – have been written with room for development by the public, our members, and members in Parliament.

Thousands have been inspired by his leadership campaign, and are now ready to pound the streets of Britain, including in areas seen by past strategists as “no go” areas for Labour.

The methods and networks built up can now be put to use for all of Labour.

We know there is a lot of hard work ahead of us. Yet through working together and really listening to each other and attempting to homogenise our varying ideas and perspectives, we have a historic opportunity to unlock potential, to build a project of hope, and to rebuild and transform Britain with the next Labour government so that no one and no community is left behind.

This article is part of a series we’re running on the future of the Labour party. If you enjoyed it, read more below:

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